Former City owners make £50m bid for West Ham

Former Birmingham City owners David Gold and David Sullivan have made a £50 million bid for struggling Premier League club West Ham United.

If successful in their bid, Gold and Sullivan are set for a quick return to top-flight football ownership, having just sold high-flying Birmingham City to Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung in October.

Sky Sports News on Monday quoted a source close to Gold as saying that part of the cash would go to the club's Icelandic owners and the rest to service debt and provide funds for the January transfer market.

West Ham were acquired by CB Holding, a unit of Iceland's bailed-out Straumur-Burdaras bank, in June. That takeover followed the collapse of the business empire of former owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, who bought West Ham in 2006 for about £85 million and who had borrowed heavily from the Icelandic bank.

Straumur, a major lender to Gudmundsson's holding company, was taken over by Iceland's financial authorities in March. West Ham, managed by Italian Gianfranco Zola, are currently sitting in the relegation zone having lost 1-0 to Birmingham on Saturday.